Practice Areas

• Workers' Compensation
• Personal Injury
• Social Security Disability

Firm News

• When the injured worker returned to work he was immediately fired...
  
• Workers' Compensation: The IC ruled that the employer, who willingly paid the medical claim and workers comp for the employee's foot injury, must also pay for pain management because this injury aggravated the employee's pre-existing fibromyalgia and hypertension and was now considered a chronic condition. Although it is tough to win these claims we can usually do it if we the treating physician will agree that the pre-existing condition is worse now than it was and that this change is due to the worker's comp accident....
  
• Workers' Compensation: The Industrial Commission denied the employee's claim for temporary partial disability compensation. The Commission ruled that the reduction in wages that our client received was because of problems with the company's workload due to the economy. It was determined that he didn't receive less pay because of his injury or from the less-paying job within the company that he had to take because of the injury....
  
• Workers' Compensation: The NC Industrial Commission determined that the employer was required to pay our client's medical bills and also continue workers' compensation payments until our client could find a job with his limited physical capabilities. The employer was unable to find work for him at the company and he was fired, which was unacceptable, although it was explained by the employer as happening because of excessive absences....
  
• Workers' Compensation: The North Carolina Industrial Commission threatened to hold CNA in contempt of court because they refused to authorize the medical tests which would prove that the plaintiff was unable to do his job. This was a classic example of an adjuster getting an opinion from a reliable doctor and then refusing any other evaluation which could help the injured worker....
  
• Workers Compensation: The North Carolina Industrial Commission held that National Benefits Association had wrongfully denied this claim for more than a year...but only when the Industrial Commission finally heard all the evidence -- that the employer admitted that they knew the plaintiff was hurt, that they had sent him to a doctor but didn't follow his direction, and that there was no way our client could do his job with his severely-injured back....
  
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission says Liberty Mutual must provide yardcare and housecleaning to an injured brickmason....
  
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission rules that a restaurant dishwasher who slipped and fell, and was taken straight to an emergency room has proven that he was injured on the job....
  
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission finds that Diebold and Broadspire MUST pay weekly benefits even after they fired the injured worker from her "light duty" job....
  
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission rules against The Hartford Insurance Company and holds that a nurse who was still on her employer's property when she was hit by a car is within the course and scope of her employment and entitled to workers' compensation benefits....
  

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Library

Workers' Compensation

• Psssst! Who's that following you?
• NCIC Form 25T: Mileage Reimbursement form
• Form 28T: Notice of Termination of Compensation by Reason of Trial Return to Work
• Form 33R: Response to Request that Claim Be Assigned for Hearing
• 10 Things Your Insurance Adjuster Won't Tell You (download)

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Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission rules that a restaurant dishwasher who slipped and fell, and was taken straight to an emergency room has proven that he was injured on the job.

In another failed attempt at "deny and buy" (the insurance industry trick of denying an obviously good claim in the hope of starving an injured worker into a cheap settlement) this restaurant denied the workers comp claim when their dishwasher slipped on a piece of butter, fell on his back, and was taken to the emergency room.

While it isn't recorded in the Opinion and Award the defendant first tried to claim that our client wasn't even on the job. Fortunately we'd immediately made copies of his time card -- so we were able to prove that was, in fact, there. This claim got ugly fast as the defendants poured thousands of dollars into trying every dirty trick in the book. We fought back with a series of tape-recorded interviews, our own investigator, and relentless pressure on a defendant who was willing to do almost anything to avoid payment of the claim.

This case was not easily won, however. The uninsured owner of the restaurant poured money into his defense, using one of the highest profile attorneys in the state to argue the case to the North Carolina Court of Appeals and back.

Click to read the Industrial Commission decision. User name is "public" and there is no password.

Read More About Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission rules that a restaurant dishwasher who slipped and fell, and was taken straight to an emergency room has proven that he was injured on the job....

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